Yale Center for British Art

Creator:: Richard Parkes Bonington, 1802–1828, British
Title:: Barges on a River
Date:: 1826
Materials & Techniques:: Oil on millboard
Dimensions:: 9 7/8 x 13 7/8 inches (25.1 x 35.2 cm)
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1981.25.54
Gallery Label:: It seems likely that this painting was a studio composition rather than a view, because Richard Parkes Bonington incorporates, with great facility, a number of familiar English and Dutch motifs: Turnerian trees on the left, for example, and the angular, rather geometrical stumps and blocky foreground barge, all joined by a windmill plucked from Rembrandt. This may not be entirely fair, though, since we know Bonington sketched windmills near Mantes in about 1825. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022